Friday, 9 July 2010

Private Eye in legal row with Barclay brothers

Private Eye doesn't put much of its material online but it has posted this story up about Telegraph-owners the Barclay brothers having "secured a new distinction by becoming the first people in the Eye’s 49-year history to take legal umbrage at a spoof in our joke pages."The Eye says: "The item, in Eye 1264, was a mock Telegraph front page (“Expenses Scandal Day 94”) exposing two tax-dodging brothers living on “the remote Channel Island of Brilleau” who pay a team of hacks to pontificate on MPs’ tax avoidance and other financial wheezes, and who acquired the newspaper from a convicted fraudster."You can read the full story here Barclays Up The Wrong Tree which includes the Eye lawyers' response.

13 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Having been to Sark and Brecou I think that the Barclay Brothers have been bullying and heavy handed with the islanders/their employees on Sark.

It may be that I am wrong and that the Barclays can be good for Sark's economy without destroying the quaint and unspoilt that makes the island attractive to tourists. The Sarkese will have to continue to fight their corner for this.

Perhaps unfairly I cannot help but be biased against the Barclays for covering the isle of Brecou with ugly invasive plant species and a giant ugly castle like some mutated realisation of an 8yr old girl's dream.

I live on sark and i believe the island has been enhanced by the sark estate managements investments.The avenue has never looked so good and people are generally happier that they are getting an income rather than wondering where the next pay cheque is coming from. Im not speaking for all but as a normal person that has to work for a living i think the barclays being involved with sark can only be a good thing for the island.

What the Barclays do they do well, but the problem is that they don't take into account where they are doing it.

Unfortunately they don't understand the meaning of things being natural. They seem to have a need to manicure or workers who are adept at persuading them to give them more work and the consequence is that they destroy the appeal of the island. It may not be their fault when you consider where they come from, but what they are doing to Sark is a well-meaning, misplaced tragedy.

I have just come back from Sark - knowing very little about the feud or the ongoing situation when I went. However, after a week on the island I met many local people, who had lived there all their lives and heard their stories of how destructive this sledgehammer approach to development has been - to local culture, local traditions and small businesses. Feelings ran high and, the latest edition of the Sark newsletter, published under the juristiction of the Barclay brothers, was in the main used to score political points and continue the vendettas. This is not conclusive to encouraging tourists to have a positive view of the brothers. It makes far more sense for the Barclay brothers to concede that they may need to take a few steps back and rethink this colonial approach to island development and try to work with, rather than against, the people of this island.

The Barclay Brothers involvement and interference in the island of Sark is both surreal and bizarre.Through a policy of property and land acquisition and apparaent, alledged 'investment' they are attempting to excercise corporate dominance over a small, isolated community.Why?Despite their vicious, ugly, ongoing and relentless propaganda campaign this is all about one thing. TAX.It is believed that the Barclays avoid paying zillions in taxation on their global business empire by being domiciled in Brecqhou. They were previously based in Monaco.Their vision for some utopian, tax-free island state is completely skewed. If they continue with their relentless vision for their future of Sark, HM Privy Council will be forced to intervene and say 'STOP, NO MORE'. The Barclays will be forced to run for some alternative tax avoidance cover scheme.

This 'newsletter' that the Barclays oversee, and have delivered free to every house on the island, has recently been used to personally slandert a man and his Dr's professional judgement, for not using the helicopter to guernsey, instead of the flying Christine, when his wife had a stroke. Why? Because the barclay brothers have not yet got what they want on sark - a heliport. To helicopter the 'right sort' of tourist in to their hotels on sark.Who is benefitting from this?And at what personal cost to the people who actually live on the island?

The mayhem and polarisation within the community the Barclay Brothers and their local agent Kevin Delaney are imposing on this delightful island continues unabated. The Sark newsletter is a poisonous, pernicious and libellous Barclay publication with no right of reply. The Barclays may have invested heavily and attempted to change the law to suit themselves but they are simply not wanted. I would refer any reader to the Save our Sark site on Facebook and also a locally based blog at http://ebenezerlepage.blogspot.co.uk/

Ridding the island of Delaney would be a kindly but unlikely gesture. He is the editor of The Sark Newsletter which can be found at http://www.sarknewsletter.com/

and an attempt to fight back at http://www.sarksurgery.com/wp/2012/02/response-to-sark-newsletter-allegations/

The more publicity that can be given to this issue is welcome. Maybe a submission from Sark to the Levison Enquiry would go go down well.

I find it quite strange why The Barclay Brothers are suing Private Eye but not suing Lord de Chanson relating to his blog on Aidan Barclay, chairman of the Telegraph Media Group? So there is truth in what Lord de Chanson has written on Aidan Barclay?

About Me

I am a freelance journalist based in the UK and was deputy editor of Press Gazette, the journalists' magazine, from 1993 until 2006. I want to give an independent view on media matters.
You can contact me with stories, ideas and comments by email at jon.slattery369@btinternet.com You can also follow me on Twitter @jonslattery